Voice of Experience: Francesca Harris, Business Development Manager, PwC UK

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Francesca Harris

By Cathie Ericson

“Know your worth, and keep striving for where you want to be compared to where you are,” says Francesca Harris.

She advises tapping the knowledge of the people and talent that is all around to develop yourself further. “Find someone you can reach out to who has already arrived where you hope to be and seek their advice and support to see how they got there,” she says.

Over the years she has realized the power of reaching out to people who are more senior than yourself and investing time in those relationships, rather than being intimidated by who they are.

“Be fearless and take risks,” she says. “You can never be wrong trying to do something right so run with it, and there will always be people there to support you.

A D&I Pioneer

Harris started her career in London in the online digital space, primarily in the music and entertainment industry. It was a similar skill set as business development, and after four years she accepted a job offer from PwC and moved to Birmingham where she currently focuses on the private business market and growing client portfolios. Each day is a fascinating mix of helping businesses conquer a challenge or entrepreneurs who are working toward getting to the next level.

But the professional achievement of which she is most proud is her recent honor as Barclays Diversity Champion DIVA 2018. “When I saw the short list, I was amazed at the heavy hitters and outstanding women who had been nominated so it was a complete surprise when I was named the winner,” she says.

Over the past few years, diversity and inclusion has been her “pet project” that she has worked to drive forward by building connections among friends and colleagues. Harris is also a very active PwC GLEE ambassador – PwC’s LGBT+ internal network, headed up by PwC partner Brian Ashmead-Siers established to drive equal representation.While there is still much to be done, she is proud of the progress that has been made and the work that PwC is doing in particular. One new initiative centers on the pay gap and the firm’s move toward a 50/50 short list for each positon, meaning which an equal gender split will be considered.

She also is active in external networks such as the Midlands Alliance Network that she and other corporate colleagues have built over the past three years, and LB Women, which is focused on lesbian and bisexual women.

While it can sometimes feel as though there’s a double glass ceiling, she is encouraged that people are routinely breaking through that barrier, and she knows that past generations probably had it a lot harder. “People’s behaviors around inclusivity are changing for the better, and now it’s important to continue to be visible so others can be educated on the challenges that they might not realize exist,” she says.

And of course as diversity and inclusion improve at a rapid rate, she looks forward to how far it can progress so the next generation won’t have to deal with the same issues.

Out and Proud

Harris finds that being out has helped her build better relationships because when you are closeted, there is a lot of your life that people don’t see and can’t understand. “You’re always frightened you will slip up and share things you don’t want to, so you tend to be more closed off,” she says. But when you’re just meeting someone and can feel free to share personal details, it adds a level of trust to that relationship right away.

She also appreciates that she can be a role model for others, even sometimes from afar. When you are open and visible about who you are, others who may be struggling can see that and say “She’s doing it and seems to be ok, and maybe I will too.”
“Even if you never interact with them, you can be a lighthouse that offers that level of comfort,” Harris notes. She says that she occasionally mentors people who are frightened they won’t be accepted as being out, so she urges them to realize they will always be able to find a support system. “The most important thing you can do is be yourself; in fact you can’t be successful without it,” she says.

And she finds it beneficial on the client side to show that the firm has diverse people and therefore is apt to offer better, more-rounded solutions.

“Once you take everyone’s strengths, the whole becomes better. Why would you have a team that all thinks the same,” she wonders.

Harris relaxes by painting, and an avid traveler, she will soon head to South America. But to her, family is most critical, and she is over the moon proud that she has just found out she is soon to be an aunt.

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Smith, Executive Vice President and Marketing COO, Wells Fargo

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Stephanie SmithBy Cathie Ericson

Success in your career can be determined by your network, which is why women can’t overlook the importance of building and maintaining relationships — not just in your company or department, but across a broad swath of the industry.

“Like many women, at the start of my career, I was very heads down on my work as I sought to perform at a high level,” says Wells Fargo’s Stephanie Smith. “While I created relationships in my company, I learned over the course of my career how critical it is to have those relationships across an industry, whether you’re trying to build a team or benchmark best practices.”

Capturing the Opportunities Available in Marketing

Currently Smith is COO for Wells Fargo Marketing, and her goal is to create a world-class marketing organization within Wells Fargo. The domain is vast, as marketing is a centralized enterprise function that supports every business in the company, as well as digital marketing and other functions.

Before moving into this role, Smith had spent a decade in leadership roles in digital channels at Wells Fargo and Bank of America, where she oversaw the online banking and electronic payments functions as well as digital marketing and sales.
Before joining the corporate world, Smith had been a political appointee in the Clinton administration, where she was the General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing; prior to that she had worked with national and regional non-profits that focused on affordable housing and community development.

While her career has encompassed very different assignments, Smith says that the connective tissue among all her positions has been her passion for thinking about how capitalism can help working- and middle-class Americans achieve their goals.
While it’s hard to choose just one professional achievement across a career that spans so many domains, Smith says that she is most proud of the role she has had in building high-performing teams no matter where she was.

Today she sees a number of opportunities and challenges, as the function of marketing is changing rapidly due to the impact of technology, as is every part of the business world.

Smith finds herself most excited about the work Wells Fargo is doing to apply robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, agile methodology and process reengineering to make marketing functions more efficient and effective. These new capabilities that are coming to market fit well with her background, which has been focused on the intersection of determining how you best serve customers and their financial needs using technology, along with the impact of digital technology on every aspect of marketing, including creating customized experiences.

In the operational centers of marketing, she sees that digital technology and automation are streamlining work that used to be highly manual. “Even five years ago we had a smaller set of capabilities to work with; the acceleration brought on by the expansion of marketing technology has been so constant,” Smith notes.

Seeing Diversity Across the Organization

Over the years, Smith has seen that women are given fewer opportunities for stretch assignments — partially because they aren’t offered to them as much, but also because women don’t tend to ask for them as often as men. She attributes this to women’s propensity to feel like they have to be 100 percent ready for a role before taking it, whereas men feel like they need to about 50 percent ready.

“I often share the message with young women that they don’t have to know everything on day one,” Smith says. She adds that mastering a steep learning curve will contribute to your competency and your career, supplemented by asking for support when you need it.

She relays one of her favorite pieces of advice, shared by her boss in her first job out of graduate school where she was developing affordable housing: “You don’t have to have all the answers; you just have to know the questions to ask,” which she has found helpful in a variety of new roles and challenges.

In addition she urges women not to assume that their work will speak for itself and get duly recognized since the reality is that you have to do the great work, but promote it as well. She appreciates when women in senior roles promote the work of other women, a strategy that is even more important in support of women of color.

Smith has been “out” at work as a lesbian since she left college, but acknowledges that it’s been a distinct advantage to live and work for most of her career in the accepting Bay Area. “For many others in the corporate environment, they may not have the benefit of geographic location as I do.”

Being out allows her to bring her whole self to work and not worry about expending energy on hiding her sexual orientation or her family, which makes her a better leader and team member. She also enjoys being an advocate for others as she knows how important it is to see people who are like you in the senior ranks.

As the former executive advisor to the LGBTQ employee group at Wells Fargo for a number of years, she has been proud to help lead productive discussions surrounding how the company can best support team members.

As an example, Wells Fargo’s decision to sign on to the amicus brief in support of the 2015 Supreme Court case on freedom to marry (Obergefell v. Hodges) was important, as it underscored that Wells Fargo is a company that supports the rights of its LGBTQ team members and customers. She finds this open support, combined with equal benefits for team members in same-sex relationships, to be an asset in attracting and retaining employees, and goes to the heart of Wells Fargo’s values of diversity and inclusion.

A Values-Driven Personal Life

With 17- and 15 year-old daughters, Smith and her wife structure their non-work time around their kids in a values-based way. The first is voluntarism, and they work together as a family at several homeless programs on a monthly basis; the second is education and they volunteer at the girls’ schools, which allows them to support education while also being around their daughters. And finally, they value cultural experiences so they frequently travel internationally as a family. “We structure our time around these three dimensions, which both lets us reinforce what we value as a family and gives us meaningful time with our children.”

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Voice of Experience: Corinne Heyes, HR Director for the Americas at Barclays

Corinne Heyes

By Cathie Ericson

Taking a risk is worth the reward, says Corinne Heyes, who knows firsthand the benefits.

In fact, as a naturally risk-averse person, she has nonetheless managed her career that way successfully, in a manner she terms “opportunistic, but safe.”

When she recently took a risk late in her career by changing firms after 16 years and assuming a much larger role, she says it was the best decision of her career. “My 19 months at Barclays have been challenging, energizing and stimulating — I’m having fun working with a team of smart, dedicated and motivated HR professionals,” she says.

The Road That Led Her There

Heyes graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Psychology in 1982 and started her professional career as a financial underwriter for Aetna Life and Casualty. The work entailed using claim experience and actuarial formulas to price group insurance products, such as employee benefits plans for large clients that included corporations like American Express and trade associations like the Securities Industry Association (SIA).

After a couple of years in Aetna’s Hartford home office, she asked to be transferred to the sales and servicing office in New York City, where she would keep her same accounts but move into a direct client service role. The largest member of the SIA was Wertheim & Co., a small, privately held investment bank and after serving as its account representative for two years, Wertheim asked her to join the firm to launch its benefits department.

Over the subsequent 11 years, she received an MBA in Finance from NYU’s Stern School and picked up the compensation function to complement her benefits role. The firm had changed names several times — from Wertheim to Wertheim Schroder to Schroders, and in 2000, Citigroup acquired Schroders, and Heyes joined the investment bank to manage the compensation team.

Over 16 years at Citi, she acquired additional businesses in her compensation management portfolio and for the last six years ran the compensation practice for the entire institutional side of Citi. She joined Barclays in October 2016 as the Director of HR and Rewards, Americas, where she now oversees the delivery of the full suite of HR services, including compensation and benefits.

In addition to that role, Heyes is a member of the U.S. Executive Committee for the Bank Holding Company Barclays has established in the United States, which has its own independent board and relationship with U.S. regulators like the Fed.

Culture as a Driver of Firm Success

For Heyes, one of the best parts of her job is helping define and promote the firm culture. “The challenge starts with defining your desired culture in words,” she says, noting that at Barclays, the culture is underpinned by its five values — respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship. But to drive the desired culture, firms need to be able to measure evolution in a consistent, replicable way. To that end, Barclays has developed a culture dashboard that includes qualitative and quantitative metrics that they measure quarterly, which enables them to track the culture over time and design strategies to address any area of opportunity.

This type of action is very topical in the financial services industry, she says, with firms focused on defining, measuring and driving culture. But that’s not all. “Our regulators are keenly interested in culture as an asset which mitigates misconduct risk,” she points out, adding that the Fed published a white paper which advanced the concept of “cultural capital” as an asset that can act as a loss mitigator by influencing decisions, behaviors and outcomes over time. And even though it is an intangible asset, the fact that its impact can be measured, assessed and influenced means it is an important one.

Firms must invest in cultural capital in the same way they invest in other forms of capital, like physical, human or reputational capital, or they will deteriorate over time and adversely impact a firm’s productivity, adding that Barclays shares this sentiment regarding cultural capital.

And the commitment to cultural capital extends throughout the organization down to programs that promote diversity and inclusiveness. Tone from the top is critical in establishing D&I as a central tenet to a firm’s mission, but the words are only given credence through real actions and programs. For example, at Barclays they have introduced gender-neutral paid child care leave and have championed dynamic working, which encourages employees to define the individual work arrangement that best integrates their professional and personal lives.

Heyes also has experienced the firm’s inclusiveness with no hesitation in being out at work. “You often hear the phrase ‘bring your whole self to work,’ which underscores the concept that authenticity frees up discretionary energy, enabling you to engage more powerfully,” she says.

“For those in the LBGT+ community who are in the closet at work, it’s not simply that they are choosing to leave behind certain discretionary aspects of their lives, but rather they are actively hiding this very elemental aspect of their personhood.” And while that puts up barriers to being able to connect fully with one’s colleagues, even more critically, it is intellectually, emotionally and spiritually exhausting to maintain a facade every minute of the workday.

And she knows this exhaustion firsthand, because she was not out for the 11 years she worked at Schroders. It wasn’t until she moved to Citi and decided that to be open with her colleagues that she realized how liberating it was not to be guarded in her daily interactions. She found her colleagues to be very supportive, and in fact, it quickly became unremarkable.

When she and her wife married in November 2013 after DOMA was overturned — on their 23rd “anniversary!” – her team threw them a surprise wedding shower. And she adds, she believes it is important to be seen as a senior LGBT role model.

A Fulfilling Personal Life That Includes Giving Back to Others

Despite her many professional achievements, the accomplishment Heyes is most proud of so far is much more personal. Through a firm program, Heyes mentored a high school student for her junior and senior years — the pair went to museums, plays and sporting events and spent countless hours discussing everything from current events, to their respective families and how to conduct a college search.

“While on paper we seemed quite different, we developed an easy-going relationship and discovered our commonalities,” Heyes says. “I feel very strongly that we have an obligation to the next generation, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.” In fact, at Barclays, she has also engaged with Cristo Rey, a high school in East Harlem that offers students the chance to work with corporate partners as a core experiential learning component. Last year they contracted for one student one day a week, and are looking to expand their commitment to five for the upcoming school year.

Heyes also sits on the board of “Find the Courage,” a nonprofit that runs youth programs designed to inspire, educate and empower young people to be positive leaders by promoting respect, kindness, inclusion and resiliency in their communities. And for fun she enjoys reading, gardening, photography and travel, and as she says, “I’m a total sports junkie.”

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Voice of Experience: Beth Brooke-Marciniak, Global Vice Chair of EY

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Beth Brooke-MarciniakBy Cathie Ericson

When Beth Brooke-Marciniak first started her career, she found she was intensely focused on the job at hand, rather than paying special attention to building relationships along the way.

But she soon learned the importance of building those by giving to others. “If your relationships are built based on what you can do for the other person, it’s like putting pennies in the bank, and there will be a cumulative effect later in your career,” she says.

Finding an Intersection between Business and Public Service

Beth always urges young women to find a place where they can experience an entrepreneurial culture and have the chance to advance on their own merits. “In a firm like mine, you can take as much responsibility as you can handle, which is an environment that is particularly suited for women who can take control and go all in with good sponsors and mentors. The key is figuring out life as it comes, rather than anticipating issues and standing back waiting to be tapped.”

Brooke-Marciniak has spent nearly four decades at EY, except for a brief stint in public service during the Clinton administration. She started her career in the Indianapolis office in the auditing department, but soon segued to the tax practice. She relocated to D.C. to run the insurance tax practice, and it was in that capacity that she was known to the Clinton administration. They were interested in the unique blend of experience she had gained working on healthcare clients since managed care was new at the time and the tax policy was confusing.

She said she would give two years which she says were a fascinating journey “on the front lines of the legislative experience in a great administration that was trying to change the world.”

During that time, she found there was often a disconnect in how business and government worked together. She realized that the world needed someone with the patience and diplomatic skills to figure out where CEOs were coming from on issues and what society needed — and join them.

It was with that vision that Brooke-Marciniak sat down with EY executives and told them that she didn’t want to go back to the tax practice. The chairman invited her to come back to be part of the senior team, even though her role and title weren’t yet clearly defined. She trusted his word and was soon immersed in strategy work, until the Enron situation happened, shaking public trust and confidence in the industry’s work. She knew that the field needed to build a long-term effort to restore credibility, and she took on the task of leading the profession through those changes.

“I’m proud of how far we’ve come and how we pulled together after Enron and worked cooperatively with our competitors on matters of public policy to restore the industry,” she says.

Beth continues to see society looking to business to fill the gaps being left by government, yet noticing there remains some reticence to trusting business fully. And, business has to work hand in hand with government incentives that must be in place. “Business will do what’s in its self-interest, and we can’t solve everything, but by working together diplomatically all of society will benefit,” she says.

Embracing Differences Publicly

As proud as she is of her professional achievements, not much can match the impact of her coming out, which was far from ordinary. She had been asked as an ally to help with a video designed to reach teens who were contemplating suicide. But when she started filming it, she realized she didn’t want to stay in her role of “straight ally,” but wanted to be honest about who she was. “It just poured out of me: I wanted to tell these teens they are valuable because they’re different, not in spite of it,” she says.

And Brooke-Marciniak knows how it feels to be different. First, she was one of few women in a profession where her politics were different than most of her colleagues, Furthermore, she was an introvert in a sea of extroverts. “Although these qualities all made me feel very different, EY embraced me. I never felt unwelcome or excluded, and I realized that I was very lucky to work for this organization where I was valued for my differences. That was my ‘aha moment’ — that everyone is different and feels different.”

At that moment, when she came out, she says that her world went from black and white to life in full color. Once you are living an authentic life, colleagues can now engage you as a whole person, and you can be a whole leader, she says. And she adds, it’s even more challenging to be a closeted introvert because it feels dangerous to engage people one on one. “I was seen more as a loner and aloof which wasn’t true at all,” she says.

At EY, she has been instrumental in starting a global LGBT partner group and she works behind the scenes with the World Economic Forum on the LGBT agenda. “Social bias is an intractable process, but we are making headway,” she says.
However, these ongoing challenges underscore why Brooke-Marciniak shares with younger professionals that her best advice is to pay attention to the culture you are joining. “Anyone can learn what you need to learn, but if the culture doesn’t work, you’ll self-select out or they’ll kick you out,” she says, noting that cultures are not created equally. For her part, EY has been the perfect fit since all ideas are welcome and challenging the status quo is encouraged. “Our culture appreciates that better decisions are made through different ideas,” she says.

Brooke-Marciniak first knew her wife as a business colleague – neither of them knew one another was gay at the time they met. When the Wall Street Journal ran a story about the lack of gay CEOs and profiled Beth, her now-wife came to her and said she was closeted and wanted to discuss the struggle and risks. They had dinner to talk it through and the rest, as they say, is history — they now live happily ever after with two cats and two dogs.

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Mover and Shaker: Virgen Tracey, Senior Team Leader, WEX

Virgen TraceyBy Cathie Ericson

Knowing and understanding that it’s ok to take risks because that’s how you will grow and learn has helped forge a successful career path for WEX’ Virgen Tracey.

She is quick to point out that there’s never a dumb or perfect idea, and just because you’ve been somewhere longer, it doesn’t mean you have all the answers. In fact, the best ideas often come from fresh thinking.

“I always tell my team that you can’t learn if you don’t make mistakes, and it’s true for me, too. Realizing that the next time I’ll better know what to do has allowed me to grow in my career and as a person,” she says.

For Tracey that 20 years of growth has brought a thriving career at WEX as a leader, taking on diverse roles within the contact center that have allowed her to conquer a new challenge every day.

“Being able to take risks in my role has been a huge learning point for me. We think outside the box every day, not only from a professional standpoint, but as a rapid-growth company, we must be able to embrace change,” she says. Tracey credits her ability to lead by example, to “walk the walk,” as a key force for building credibility and trust and having a followership that has made her a successful team leader.

Leading the Contact Center To Success

Joining WEX fresh out of college, Tracey knew she would have to work hard, but also learn to be open to change to make the most of the startup environment. And, at the forefront of her mind was the realization that the company had earned a great deal of respect and customer trust that they would deliver excellent service, and her role was to stand by those ideals. She appreciates that she has been there throughout the growth of the company, fulfilling her belief that her hard work would pay off.
Right now, she’s excited to be working on supporting with implementation of the Salesforce service cloud application into the contact center. They are currently piloting it with 50+ employees across the organization, and she says it has been a game changer for how it’s going to increase efficiencies and gives insight into how to better support the customer to provide a better agent and customer experience. “Using this tool allows us to increase the information we have at our fingertips, directing us to what we need to change and enhance for better employee customer satisfaction and efficiency.”

After the full roll-out to more than 130 employees in the South Portland contact center, she will then support with spearheading the roll-out in the contact center in Ogden, focusing on ensuring the impact is minimal.

Mentors Lead the Way

To Tracey, a role model is someone she can look up to, but is also a mentor who can provide support and feedback to help her grow based on what they’ve seen in their interactions.

Over the years she says she has been honored to work with many successful individuals who have helped show her the ropes, in both IT and leadership roles. “If I wanted to know how others got to where they are today, I had to seek out the opportunities to network and find mentors,” she says. She credits a willingness to being open to listening to their stories about the best practices that worked for them and how they got on the path that led them to their end result of success.

And now she is focused on being a role model to others, taking what she’s learned by seeking out opportunities to learn from others and sharing that knowledge. “I can’t wait for the moment that I report to many of my team members whom I have helped nurture to a place of leadership,” she says.

Currently she is part of the pilot of WEX’ mentoring program where she is paired with a mentee, which has helped give her confidence and also will expose her entire team tåo the many benefits of formal mentorship to encourage new styles and ways of thinking.

Melding a Busy Professional and Personal Life

With three kids, ages 6, 15 and 19, there is never a dull moment, particularly when travel softball is part of the picture. “I love watching my 15 year old daughter play, and notice her development and how she gives 100 percent on and off the field. It’s such an inspiration as a work ethic,” Tracey says, noting that watching her hard work and openness to coaching is a lesson she herself can bring back to work.

Aside from giving “200 percent” to work, which has paid off in being tapped for her fifth upcoming President’s Club, Tracey always takes time to be present in her family life…but admits with a laugh that she also will never turn down a trip for shoe shopping. Most importantly she loves spending time with her husband and kids and enjoying any free time they have together.

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Voice of Experience: Rupa Briggs, Counsel, Capital Markets, Shearman & Sterling

Rupa BriggsBy Cathie Ericson

If you’re interested in doing something, be proactive and ask for it, recommends Rupa Briggs, who was just promoted to counsel as of March 1.

She notes that when you first start out you should work on as many different projects as possible to figure out what you like, and focus on building a strong reputation because competence begets more work. “Sometimes we tend to be ‘good girls,’ and don’t necessarily ask for opportunities, but you can’t be passive about your career. You must be in the driver’s seat,” she says. Because while people may have good intentions and want to be helpful, only you can plan the road map to get to your next steps.

Growing Her Career at Shearman & Sterling

After starting her legal career at a different firm, Briggs joined Shearman & Sterling in 2016, impressed with its capital markets platform and seeing vast opportunities for advancement and growth.

Over the years, she has become a trusted advisor to her clients, the professional achievement she is most proud of so far. “As a junior associate, you spend most of your time learning the deal process and how you fit into the larger picture, but as you continue to develop as an attorney and your knowledge of the substance of your practice grows, your interactions and client relationships begin to change,” she says. “It was so satisfying and rewarding when clients were directing questions to me in the first instance, instead of to a partner or senior associate,” she says, adding that it was very confidence building.

Currently Briggs is working on a couple of healthcare-related IPOs, which she finds exciting and interesting since it’s such an important milestone in these companies’ evolution to help them reach the next step in commercializing their drug or product. The space she is working in is cutting-edge and includes smaller biotechs focusing on, in some cases, rare diseases and medtech companies with innovative products for large patient populations.

“For me it’s tremendously satisfying because you see the impact these drugs or products will have on individuals, and you know that even in the context of an IPO, you are making a difference by helping the company raise the capital they need to get to the next level.”

Other exciting areas that will impact the world of business and financial markets are blockchain and artificial intelligence. Briggs sees that regulatory issues related to these emerging technologies will continue to evolve, and she watches with interest to see how clients will integrate these technologies into their own businesses and how Shearman & Sterling can help them navigate the challenges from a regulatory standpoint.

Women Need To Advocate Together

Briggs has found that it can be more challenging for women to develop the informal networks that men generally have. Because law partnerships tend to be male-dominated, many women face a dearth of role models. She encourages women to focus on building their own informal networks. “We put our heads down and work hard, but there are other skills and elements that are necessary to become successful that we don’t always know about.”

One ally is the firm’s WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) group, which she co-chairs, that offers both the opportunity to network and to learn more about these informal norms, while also building the professional development skills that women don’t as easily pick up, from building your brand to establishing and maintaining trusted relationships with clients.

She believes that men might naturally have more avenues to learn these skills and market them – so it’s important for women to support one another in creating those paths if they are not emerging.

On that note, she recommends building networks with both senior and junior women and urges senior professionals to pay it forward and serve as a mentor that a junior person can turn to for advice. “Being available and engaged with other women is the key to retention,” she says. She looks forward to helping further build the WISER program as it continues to focus on providing women at the firm with the tools to build their careers and professional relationships.

As mom to an active preschooler, Briggs says she focuses less on achieving work/life balance than just making sure she’s doing her best. “It’s easier to manage what’s going on and integrating work and life when you are engaged. The personal and intellectual satisfaction I receive from the practice spills over nicely to make all the parts of my life blend successfully.”

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Voice of Experience: Helena Yoon, Principal, Assurance, PwC

Helena Yoon

Sometimes you have to take risks and run toward the fire, says Helena Yoon, a Principal at PwC, a philosophy that has helped her create a rich and varied career.

Building an Agile Career at PwC

Yoon started as an intern at PwC more than 20 years ago. Although the common thread throughout her career has been a focus on clients, her roles have been in a wide variety of departments. Each time she left for maternity leave, she transitioned her portfolio to others on her team, and then would reinvent herself each time she returned, coming back to a different role. This allowed her to gain experience in compliance, regulatory audit and consulting.

“The strategy bolstered my career by forcing growth and change agility,” she notes, adding that her career success is proof of how she’s been able to handle the challenges.

“When I returned from my first maternity leave, I encountered some challenges and wondered how I could succeed professionally. Fortunately, I had a mentor who rallied around me and helped me work through how to balance and achieve what I wanted. Now, I see what a benefit it was to learn how to reinvent myself – the change agility has been invaluable to my career.”

Today she serves a mix of audit and non-audit clients in audit and consulting roles. The crux of everything she does is helping others maximize their potential, whether they’re clients or her internal team. “I’m proud that others can be more effective because of the work I do,” she says.

Yoon is fascinated by the changes that will be brought about by applying automation and analytics to her teams and clients, and seeing how business will be transformed as a result. Historically, large volumes of data sat in disparate locations, but now, there’s a way to pull the pieces together and turn data into meaningful information that can be applied to improving business.

Empowering Women in the Workplace

Yoon recommends women take the time to invest in relationships. “My tendency early on in my career was to put my head down and focus on the work at hand, and as a relational person, I wish I had known to nurture and invest in others right from the start.” Sometimes women tend to be comfortable in what they’re doing, but Yoon says we need to disrupt that, especially in professional services.

“A world of opportunity is open, but I spend a lot of time with younger women, and one theme I consistently hear is that they don’t see as many role models as males do, which makes it harder to envision the future three or four jumps ahead.” Fortunately, she says, advances are occurring that will make professional services more accessible to women. As one example, recently PwC announced the firm is expanding parental benefits, which will make a great difference for returning moms. The new and creative addition is that they will follow eight weeks of paid leave with four weeks of a reduced work schedule at one’s regular full-time pay.

“I creatively eased my way back myself, but now it’s an official program, which I think will really help retention,” she says.

As a wife and mom to four children ages 12, 10, 8 and 6, Yoon loves the dynamics and relationship between them. For example, her oldest went away for a youth group retreat, and the others missed him so much, they cried. Yoon was moved by the degree to which her children relied on one another and valued their time together as a family.

In addition to nurturing her close-knit family, Yoon says they love to entertain and take family vacations. She is also very actively involved in her church and is a board member at the Stamford Symphony.

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Mover and Shaker: Yin Seo, Technical Product Manager, Laserfiche

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Yin Seo

By Cathie Ericson

Work is much different than school, Yin Seo realized early on.

“At school, everything is laid out and you know the success metric you are working toward, but in the professional world, there’s no answer key,” she says. “Everything you are doing is brand new and something that no one else has done, so what separates good employees from exceptional employees is that the exceptional ones are able to decide for themselves what is best for the team and the organization. You will never be given an assignment where someone else knows the answers.”

Advancing New Ways of Working

Seo started as a software automation engineer right out of UCLA but transitioned from coding to a subject matter expert role, where she worked more closely with clients. Soon she was overseeing an entire development team as well as the designers for a software division, which she found to be her true calling — managing the project development life cycle. There she made several impactful changes, including transitioning the development process to a “scrum” format, which she found to be superior as a way to emphasize the team mentality while implementing quicker turnarounds.

She remains passionate about project and product management and has since become certified as a Scrum Master and Project Management Professional. While the “agile” way of doing things has been successful for some time with software companies, it is moving into other industries as a best practice, validating that the technique will work for any type of project management.

She then moved to Laserfiche, a leading global provider of enterprise content management software, where she has spent the past seven months as a technical product manager, learning a new industry and new software.

Currently Seo oversees two teams working on advancing the company’s business process automation product suite. “My teams have been working really hard, and it’s exciting to see the fruits of their labor,” she says, adding that as a product manager, the most important aspect is making sure that what they’re building delivers value to customers.

One major accomplishment she has already achieved was being asked to give the keynote address at the annual Laserfiche Empower Conference, attended by more than 3,000 people. She had only been with the company for less than three months when she was invited to speak, which was a huge vote of confidence, but the other reason the accomplishment feels so significant is because previously she had been terrified to speak in public. “This was validation that I had moved out of my comfort zone to where I could handle it,” she says.

Using Strengths to Navigate Challenges

While there is a well-known dearth of women in software development, Seo sees that a major barrier for women to succeed lies in confidence. She believes that when young women see those numbers, they start to create a narrative about why there is a lack of women, which can create doubts: Are we not good enough? Is it too hard?

She urges young women to look past the statistics. “We want to be judged by our work, based on merit, and so we need to do the same for ourselves. We need to help the numbers grow, but not let them define us.”

And, she also reminds professionals at every level that they have to keep growing their skills. “If you are not improving, then you are technically losing ground since everyone else is focused on getting better.” As she points out, these skills might not always tie directly to your career; for example, for her it was improving her public speaking acumen.

An avid rock climber, Seo sees the sport as a perfect metaphor for the tech industry and pursuing goals. In rock climbing, climbers refer to every route as a “problem,” each with a grade, and as you get more experienced and stronger you can conquer higher grades – just as in business. “I’ve been learning that a lot of success comes from technique, and every problem has different solutions that you can solve in different ways,” she says.

Rock climbing also comes with its own set of stereotypes; for example that you have to be tall and have significant upper body strength, but Seo has found that you don’t have to be a certain body type to climb well. “My husband and I climb together, and he’s a little better, but there are some problems I can solve that he can’t. I am shorter but have less weight to pull up and am more flexible so you always have to use your strengths to your advantage.”
Just like in the business world.

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Voice of Experience: Rajashree Datta, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Rajashree DattaBy Cathie Ericson

“Focus on the basics, the building blocks and the details when you are starting out because when it comes time for you to be heard, you will have a depth of knowledge to draw upon that will position you well,” recommends Goldman Sachs’ Rajashree Datta.

Achieving Success and Helping Others Do the Same

Datta joined Goldman Sachs after graduating from Amherst College in 2000. Her first position was in the Investment Banking Division, and in 2003 she moved to the Treasury Department. After gaining almost 14 years of experience in the Treasury Department, she recently transferred to the Risk Division, where she now serves as global head of Liquidity Risk. In this role, she is responsible for Goldman Sachs’ liquidity risk management and ensuring appropriate risk levels are established across the firm.

“One of the reasons I have stayed in the firm is that every year I have had the opportunity to do something new: could be a new area of focus, could be a new project, or could be working in a new division. Moving to the Risk Division just continues this theme of embracing new challenges and continuing to grow,” says Datta.

Reflecting upon her previous experiences at the firm, Datta cites the peak of the 2008 financial crisis as a crucial moment: “I learned a great deal in the liquidity space during the financial crisis.” In addition, she notes that this experience crystallized for her the importance of how senior managers engage with their teams during high-intensity periods. “I saw firsthand how senior individuals’ abilities to remain calm improved the clarity of thought and quality of execution of the whole organization,” she says.

She noted that this experience shaped her interactions with her team: “It’s so important to think through how you will manage and behave in a crisis or stressful situation, particularly because junior people will typically follow the actions of senior leaders.”

In addition to serving as a leader for her team, Datta has long served as a mentor to others, and takes great pride in their success. “It has been so impactful to see people on my team be named managing director, because you hope that you contributed a little bit to their success.”

Driving a Career Through Giving and Listening to Advice

Datta notes that over a long career you’ll be faced with both professional and personal challenges, and she recommends that the best way to conquer such issues is to find mentors and peers who can provide guidance.

“I relied on mentors’ and peers’ advice when I began to prepare for my maternity leave,” says Datta. “Being the recipient of others’ perspectives – who reminded me that they have done it before in varying circumstances and with varying strategies – assured me that I would be able to successfully take my maternity leave and return to the firm.” Datta went on to note, “The thoughtfulness of my colleagues during my leave and the support I received after I came back cemented for me how much the firm cared about my ability to seamlessly reenter the workplace.”

Detailed feedback from mentors has also been extremely useful, Datta notes. “You should listen to both positive and constructive feedback, which is a key pillar to developing your skillset. Solicit feedback, participate in tough conversations, and action on constructive comments,” she recommends.

One of the programs within Goldman Sachs that was particularly influential for Datta is the Women’s Career Strategies Initiative, designed for individuals at the associate level. When she participated, she was concerned about her ability to balance family and work. “The program was tailored for my level – allowing me to network with others across the firm – and helped me identify strategies that would help me to be better positioned in my career going forward.”

As a woman in business, she has found that there aren’t barriers so much as challenges, particularly with regard to managing work and home. “It’s an issue that can only be solved individually since there isn’t a master solution that works for everyone,” she says, adding that individuals must evaluate each day, focus on their priorities and what they can realistically accomplish, and ask for help as needed. She notes, “It’s ok to say sometimes that you do not have the capacity to take on an extra project.”

Datta tries to prioritize time with her son, noting: “I try to carve out certain times or events that I don’t compromise on easily. Some days are easier than others but I typically do okay over the course of a week.”

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Voice of Experience: Deirdre Flood, Head of International Distribution, Wells Fargo Asset Management

Deidre Flood By Cathie Ericson

“You own your own path; you are your own CEO. Thus you need to manage your career to get where you want to go,” says Deirdre Flood of Wells Fargo Asset Management.

“For me opportunity knocked based on my work ethic and how I showed up to answer the door.”

Seizing opportunities as they arise has been the cornerstone of Flood’s successful career that spanned Europe and the United States, and back again.

Moving Where Opportunity Leads

At the ripe old age of 10, Flood remembers telling her elders that not only was she going to work for her money, but her money was going to work for her. Although she had varied interests throughout her teens, those words proved prescient, as she spent the first two decades of her career in financial management helping her clients money work for them.

After studying math, economics and French at University College Dublin, Flood was selected for a prestigious 18-month training program with Bank of Ireland Asset Management, the premier asset management firm. She was particularly fascinated by its global reach, with over half of its clients located outside Ireland. The internship entailed spending nine months at the headquarters in Dublin and then the other half in an international office. Flood requested a New York placement, but rather than the bright lights and big city of New York, she found herself in Greenwich, CT. Nevertheless, it was a smart career move as she found herself focused on the client-facing activities that would define her career.

In order to help gain additional credibility as a youthful female with sophisticated clients and colleagues, she earned her CFA designation. And then by building a reputation for initiative, proactive thinking and quality work, she found that opportunities presented themselves at a young age – and she said “yes” to them.

The day she planned to put in an offer on her first apartment in New York City, she was offered a position in California that she couldn’t turn down — working with a blue-chip list of clients as client service director. So instead of packing and moving to a new home in the city, she was packing her bags for California. This, to her, was an excellent lesson in seizing an opportunity, even when the timing isn’t ideal.

The role was not easy as the firm had some challenges with under-performing products and personnel turnover, and through that she learned another important lesson: You build your best client relationships during the tough times. The way one addresses client concerns – effectively and transparently – has a direct impact on successfully building a career.

Two years later the firm still hadn’t turned around, and she realized her goals and vision for her career was a mis-match with the opportunity the firm could present. Because she had built a solid network of peers in the marketplace, she put the word out that she was open to new opportunities and almost immediately had recruiters and companies calling. Narrowing it down to two appealing options, she ultimately moved to the asset management division of Wachovia, which presented itself as a start-up looking to establish a west coast presence. Flood was able to put a stake in the ground for them as the first person in an outpost office, joined shortly by key associates from her former firm as she built the west coast team.

Flood joined as consulting relations director, a role that had become a niche in its own right, and it was when she was in the process of moving to London to help expand internationally that Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo. Flood was interviewed by the acquiring management team and while they were not ready at the time for international expansion, they asked her to step into a leadership role, creating a merged global consultant relations team. She embraced the opportunity, relishing the challenge of integrating two firms.

And that Flood counts as the achievement she is most proud of so far: She was trusted as an unknown entity to play such a significant role at Wells Fargo, the acquiring firm.

In 2011, the world had settled down and international expansion again seemed like the right thing to do so she moved to London to expand the consulting relations team internationally. The role has expanded, and today Flood is Head of International Distribution for the firm.

For Flood one of the most intriguing recent developments in the industry is the growing appetite for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing. “Having investors take into account a company’s positive contribution to society brings an entirely new, satisfying dimension to my work,” she says.

Never Letting Gender Stand in The Way

While Flood has never considered gender as an obstacle, she notes that there is a growing appreciation for the role of diversity. Her one concession, she laughs, is that in her early client-facing days she learned how to play golf to allow her to more easily socialize with male colleagues.

She urges women to have confidence, particularly confronting the fear of speaking up or asking questions in a public setting because they are concerned it will make them look uninformed. “It’s about confidence, and honestly, I can guarantee there will be others in the room who will appreciate that you asked and will think favorably about you for doing so,” she says, adding that on a practical note, you will learn much faster than you otherwise would.

Outside the workplace, Flood indulges in a number of activities to bring balance to her busy work life. Her favorite involves marrying a childhood passion with giving back.

Having grown up on a working farm in Ireland, she developed a love for the beauty and spirit of horses and recently became involved with a program called Riding for the Disabled, where she can use her horse-handling experience to help educate, heal and bring joy to disabled adults and children.

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